Gina McCarthy's nomination in doubt, angering Democrats

In their letter, Vitter and other Republicans wrote that the real obstructionism has been on the part of EPA, saying the agency has stonewalled their requests for information.

“As you know, all Republicans on our EPW committee have asked EPA to honor five very reasonable and basic requests in conjunction with the nomination of Gina McCarthy which focus on openness and transparency,” the GOP members wrote. “While you have allowed EPA adequate time to fully respond before any markup on the nomination, EPA has stonewalled on four of the five categories.”

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“Because of this, no Republican member of the committee will attend today’s markup if it is held,” they added. “We do not ask or expect that you will agree with this decision. We do ask and expect that you will follow the rules of the committee and the full U.S. Senate.”

The Republicans cited committee rules requiring at least two members of the minority party to be present and Senate rules requiring a majority of panelists to be present.

GOP senators say they’re just taking a page from the Democrats’ playbook: Boxer and other Democrats on the committee boycotted the 2003 committee vote on Michael Leavitt to be President George W. Bush’s nominee to head EPA, citing a need for more information.

“As is Senate custom, committee members expect full responses to their questions prior to casting a vote in committee so that they may evaluate the qualifications of the individual who has been nominated, to date this has not happened,” then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) said in a statement on the day of that September 2003 boycott. “The American public needs answers. The Bush administration is weakening the Clean Air Act, it is weakening the Clean Water Act and it is not cleaning up superfund sites. We have a right to know why. These are life-and-death issues.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who was EPA chairman at the time, “followed the rules cited above and scheduled an official markup for two weeks later,” the Republicans wrote Thursday. “We ask and expect that you do the same.” Inhofe is one of the eight panel Republicans who signed Thursday’s letter to Boxer.

In 2009, Senate Republicans staged a three-day boycott of Boxer’s committee that delayed global warming legislation. Boxer and other Democrats wound up passing the bill without GOP participation, despite what proved to be accurate warnings that the legislation wouldn’t be able to get at least 60 votes on the floor.